Is Kanye West an idiot. . .or a genius?

Kanye West won't be up for another grammy this year, and that's probably a good thing for the rapper. The same MC who made even President Obama shake his head the wrong way after the VMA's last year.

West being a controversial figure is nothing new to anyone who followed the events of Hurricane Katrina. On September 2nd, 2005, West made the statement of "George Bush hates black people" on a nationally televised relief concert on NBC.

In 2007, West was passed over to host the VMA's for Brittney Spears. In retaliation to MTV selecting Spears, West claimed "maybe my skin's not right" and said later he would never come back to MTV.

The critics emerged again in 2008 when West released his auto-tuned album, "808's and Heartbreak". West divided his fan base with the release of "808's" and lost many supporters, as well as gaining some.

There's a simple way of looking at Kanye: You either love him. . .or you hate him.

For a long time, I was one of those haters. That was until I started doing my research on who exactly Kanye West was.

West was born in Atlanta, a fact not well known by many. He was raised in the suburbs of Chicago by his single mother and would spend each summer with his father. His father became an award-winning photographer and a counselor for his church. West graduated high school and then went on to Chicago State University. His stay at CSU was short however, as he decided to drop out after completing only one year of his education. What's intriguing about West is that he didn't drop out because he was doing poorly.

"I dropped out of school because I wasn't learning fast enough.... I learned from real life better," he said in a 2004 interview.

West moved to New York to be closer to the artists he was trying to reach with his beats and it proved to be successful. Jay-Z discovered West and one double platinum album later ("The Blueprint" in 2001), West was well on his to becoming a top producer.

But here's the part of story that made me change my opinion about Kanye.

After West produced another album for Hova ("The Blueprint 2: Gift and Curse" in 2002), West could've sat back and enjoyed his success as a producer. He had a solid career, plenty of connections, and was living the dream of many producers. But that didn't satisfy Kanye, he wanted to be something more. He made a demo tape of him rapping and waited for the phone to ring.

And he waited. . .and waited. . .and waited, and not one label called.

Until finally, in 2002, Roc-A-Fella Records gave Kanye a chance. He proved his worth quickly and was an instant success after he released "The College Dropout" in early 2004.

Kanye has always had a knack for rapping about issues, (just listen to "Flashing Lights" about Katrina) but why should we criticize the man? So what if he's a little too cocky or self-absorbed, at least he has the guts to say what he wants to.

In a country that always is proud about its right of free speech, we write Kanye off as a loon or idiot because we don't agree with some of the stuff he says. We try and knock down his accomplishments because he never had to struggle like Biggie or Tupac to reach an incredible level of fame.

Yet, I find Kanye's story more interesting than most for that reason alone. West could've lived a normal life as a producer and lived well off. He didn't have to try and become and MC. He didn't have to be obligated to say something that the President approved of after the Katrina disaster. But if he did, would we know Kanye at all?

I don't think so, the man may be controversial but he has something that a lot of MCs lack, which is drive. A lot of rappers and other artists release a great album, maybe two, and then ride that wave of fame for the rest of their careers. They lose their motivation which caused them to be successful. MCs are also afraid of controversy today. There are exceptions (Nas and Lupe Fiasco), but most avoid any type of bad sound bite or tough interview. If you need more proof, just listen to the interview Jay-Z did when he was questioned about Lil Wayne being a better lyricist.

Even with "808's", Kanye was bold and tried something new. I give Mr. West some credit for that. Kanye wants to the best there ever was, so why should we criticize him for it?

(For the complete biography of Kanye West, check out this.)

Rapping all over the world?

There's one album that I couldn't stop listening to lately, "Yes" by K-Os. The album is different from most hip-hop/rap that I listen to. The beats are unique, the lyrics unusual, and has a completely different theme to it than many of the albums I've recently checked out.

Now K-Os (pronounced as "Chaos") is an artist that some people may have heard of, but for the most part, he still has work to do if he wants to become mainstream. Well, that's mainstream in America at least.

See, K-Os isn't your everyday average MC. His parents were Jehovah's Witnesses and he was born in Canada.

After seeing that, I started to wonder, do we have a major mainstream rapper in the U.S. that hails from a different country? Why is there so many European bands, mainly British, that become incredibly popular in the U.S., but that there are no foreign MCs?

Now, some people will try and argue me on this by bringing up Drake because he's from Toronto. I agree that Drake has experienced huge success as a foreign born MC, but other than Drake, can you name me one MC that has achieved that same success in the states?

I can't. It's not that hip-hop is nonexistent in other countries, K-Os has charted in the top ten with three of his albums on the Canadian charts. Dizzee Rascal, of Great Britain, has been extremely successful on the UK charts, but has never had an album or single even crack the Billboard 200. In fact, the only British foreign rapper to even chart on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 songs was Lady Sovereign. Yeah, amazing right? Sovereign made big noise in 2006 with her single "Love Me or Hate Me" which was the #45th popular song for all of one week. Estelle, with her collaboration with Kanye West on "American Boy", did do very well on the U.S. charts, but Estelle is an R&B singer, not a rapper. Same goes for Leona Lewis too.

Another thing that's astounding is that even in their own countries, these artists aren't on the same level as the MCs in America. Rascal, who is arguably the most well known rapper in the UK, still is looking for his first #1 album on the UK charts. K-Os is experiencing difficulties as well. He hasn't charted higher than #5 in Canada.

Meanwhile, Jay-Z recently just became the only artist in American history to have eleven #1 albums. Eminem has two of the highest selling albums of the entire decade from 2000-2009 and sold more albums than any artist in that period. Even Wale, who just debuted this year and hadn't had a radio hit to date, had his album "Attention: Deficit" chart at #21 in the U.S. charts. It's amazing that even a guy like Lil Wayne that admits to smoking marijuana is an American icon because of his music.

So why the lack of international rap? Well, for one, hip-hop was born and bread in the U.S. It started with DJs rapping over samples back in the 1970's and has evolved into possibly the most popular form of music in the states. The greatest artists of hip-hop/rap come from the U.S. too, like 2pac, Notorious B.I.G., Nas, Jay-Z, and many, many more. This fact is even more mind boggling: Jay-Z's the "Blueprint 3" charted #1 on the U.S. and Canadian charts and reached #3 on the Irish charts and #4 on UK's billboard. Jigga was also the first rap artist to ever headline at the famous UK Glastonbury Festival in 2008. That means he achieved this rare honor before even Great Britain's own Dizzee Rascal.

All of this leads to a pretty startling conclusion: Even after over 30 years of hip-hop/rap, the music genre is still searching for its first international success. One of the reasons that this may be the case is because many MCs from other countries haven't had to go through what many in the U.S. have. Because the United States is such a large country, and has an always growing African American population, there is a lot more MCs that can be produced. It's like comparing a Division I school vs. Division III. In a Division I school, there is a bigger student population, which makes the chance of having more talented athletes better. In a Division III school, the pool of students is smaller so only a few really talented players will emerge. The U.S. is like a Division I school, whereas most countries in the world are like the Division III school.

I don't have a problem that hip-hop hasn't expanded much beyond the United States because the genre has expanded so much in America and has the highest quality. What I'm concerned with is if hip-hop/rap wants to become the revolution that rock music created, foreign MCs must emerge. For it to be truly successful, hip-hop needs to become something that people want to listen to and create for the world to listen to, rather than a small portion of it.